The South African Communist Party (SACP) demonstrated outside the ANN7 news channel offices on Friday over the suspension of staff who had objected to a visit by the African National Congress Youth League president earlier this year.
The SACP handed over a memorandum to management and gave the news channel 17 days to respond.
The party is standing in solidarity with workers who have been suspended after they chased away ANCYL president Collen Maimane from their offices in April.
Gauteng Provincial chairperson of the SACP Joe Mpisi said they wanted to support the dismissed employers with legal representation because the news channel did not allow trade union activities.
“It doesn’t mean when Guptas are faced with challenges they should use workers as scapegoats…We are also saying the management must transform because the management doesn’t show the demographics of the society in this country,” he said.
Mpisi also mentioned that they were made aware that employees were allegedly not paid according to the sector and worked abnormal hours with no sufficient renumeration.
“This channel is one of those channels that suppresses the views of their employees. We are in South Africa and we have the Labour Relations Act, we have the Basic Conditions of Employment Act which employers must respect, at the moment they are not respecting that,” Mpisi concluded.
Lucky Thekiso, chairperson of higher education transformation network, said the Gupta family should not undermine the laws of this country, especially the labour laws and the constitution.
“We are not going to shut up or allow this company to touch those employees. We are going to pursue this matter to the Constitutional Court to safeguard the rights of these employees,” he said.
Editor-in-chief of ANN7 and the New Age newspaper Moegsien Williams, who took the memorandum before signing it, said it was the first time they had heard some of the complaints read out in the memorandum.
“A lot of issues read out in the memorandum are wrong. We are not the employers which are described by the employees,” he said.
Williams said they would look at the memorandum and respond within the given timeframe.
Some of the issues raised on the memorandum included salaries, with employees wanting payment scales to be implemented which are fair and in line with industry standards. Another issue they had was with foreign nationals who occupied unadvertised senior postitions.
Last week the SACP held a similar picket outside the Enca head offices in Johannesburg. The party was complaining that there were no black representatives at senior management level and there was no forum for workers to express their grievances.
Earlier this month the SACP picketed outside the SABC offices in Auckland Park to express its dissatisfaction over the new editorial policy by the broadcaster, which included the controversial decision to ban images of violent protests.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
